Kolbe calls for UAFA at immigration hearing

NEWS

by Lisa Keen

In front of an unusually combative Senate Judiciary Committee,
former Republican Representative Jim Kolbe urged members to "fix" the
current immigration reform bill by adding language to help LGBT citizens with
foreign partners or spouses.

Kolbe, 70, who came out as gay in 1996 after voting for the
Defense of Marriage Act, said the immigration bill introduced this month as a compromise
between Democrats and Republicans, is "still incomplete" because of
its "omission of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families."

Kolbe spoke of his same-sex partner of eight years, Hector
Alfonso of Panama, noting that the men plan to marry in Washington, D.C., next
month. While Alfonso now has the legal authorization to stay in the United
States, said Kolbe, "many other couples are not so fortunate."

"This committee has an opportunity to fix that
problem," Kolbe said during the April 22 hearing, urging the committee to
add language from the Uniting American Families Act. The UAFA, sponsored by
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), is a stand-alone bill
that seeks to allow a U.S. citizen to gain citizenship for his or her
"permanent partner."

Kolbe said the UAFA language would make a "profound difference
in the lives of many Americans" and ensure that LGBT people are "not
torn apart from loved ones."

Leahy is expected to introduce the language as an amendment
to the current bill when the Judiciary Committee does mark up next week, but
Republicans on the committee are expected to oppose it, and some Democrats on
the committee have been relatively quiet on the issue in regards to the current
bill. One of those Democrats, Charles Schumer of New York who was part of the
"Gang of Eight" senators who drafted the overall compromise bill,
said only that the committee should consider "all amendments."

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) said Monday she
hopes the compromise bill will pass "unamended," then quickly added,
"perhaps there will be a few things."

While Schumer is a co-sponsor of the UAFA stand-alone bill,
Feinstein has not yet signed on, she made no mention of LGBT language during
Monday's hearing, and her office did not respond to a reporter's call to
explain why no LGBT provision was included in the compromise bill. While not a
member of the Gang of Eight, Feinstein was heavily involved in drafting the
bill's agricultural provisions.

"I certainly hope, given her large LGBT constituency
and her support of ending discrimination against the community, that the
Uniting American Families Act will be one of the things she supports as the bill
makes its way through the committee," said Steve Ralls, a spokesman for
Immigration Equality, a group working to secure legal protections for the
partners and spouses of LGBT people.

Ralls noted that Feinstein has been supportive of LGBT
citizens with binational spouses. She has repeatedly introduced a private bill
seeking permanent resident status for a lesbian, Shirley Tan, to enable her to
stay with her same-sex spouse and two children in Pacifica, California.
Feinstein most recently re-introduced the measure on March 18. The private bill
enables Tan to stay in the U.S. as long as it is pending or passed.

Lack of protections

Some Democrats on the committee did express concern about
the lack of protection for LGBT couples in the immigration bill.

In his opening statement for the hearing, Leahy
acknowledged, "I am disappointed that the legislation does not treat all
American families equally. We must end the discrimination that gay and lesbian
families face in our immigration law."

Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) said he has heard from many
of his LGBT constituents and that he would do "everything we can to try and
see if we can amend this bill" to protect LGBT citizens.

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) asked Kolbe what effect
there would be on immigration reform if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the
Defense of Marriage Act. The court is expected to issue an opinion on the
constitutionality of the law, which bans recognition of same-sex marriages, by
the end of June.

It's a question on the mind of LGBT activists. Presumably,
if the Supreme Court strikes down DOMA's ban on federal recognition of same-sex
marriages, then married same-sex couples will be eligible for the same
protections as married heterosexual couples under whatever immigration reform passes.
And Immigration Equality's Ralls notes that the legal precedent in immigration
law is to recognize marriages based on the state in which the marriage is licensed,
not on the state in which the married couple resides. So, if the existing bill
passes Congress and the Supreme Court strikes down Section 3 of DOMA, LGBT
people legally married to same-sex foreign nationals will presumably be able to
gain legal immigration for those same-sex spouses even without inclusion of the
UAFA language.

"Couples in non-marriage states could travel to
marriage equality states to get a marriage license, then return home and apply
for a green card," said Ralls. "A couple in Virginia could go to
[Washington] D.C., marry, and then apply for a green card in Virginia."

But Ralls and others say they don't want to rely on the
Supreme Court decision to secure equal rights for LGBT couples.

Winnie Stachelberg, executive vice president for the Center
for American Progress and a veteran gay activist, said, "You can't work on
legislation in anticipation of a particular Supreme Court ruling." And
Stachelberg said it is hard to predict the process by which UAFA would come
before the Senate.

"We assume every amendment will need 60 votes,"
she said.

That's because the Senate's partisan bickering has evolved
into an environment where a procedural vote is required in order to hold a vote
on the merits of any action. The procedural motion (known as cloture) requires
60 votes. So, if the UAFA goes into the bill in committee, where Democrats have
a majority, any effort to strip out that language on the Senate floor would
likely require 60 votes to gain cloture before proceeding to the vote to strip the
language.

"Given the number of senators who have come out for
marriage equality in recent weeks, are there 60 votes to strip out binational
couples from the underlying bill?" asked Stachelberg.

But even if the UAFA language passes the Senate, the Republican-led
House version of immigration reform will almost certainly not include it.

"It will not be the Senate bill," said
Stachelberg.

Vote in June

Congress is expected to vote on the proposed immigration
reform bill in June.

"Some of our opponents on [the Senate Judiciary] committee
are among our most vocal opponents in the Senate as a whole," said Ralls.
"We expect considerable opposition" from such members as Lindsey
Graham (R-South Carolina) and Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama).

On the floor of the Senate, other Republicans likely to
oppose inclusion of UAFA language include Senator John McCain (R-Arizona).
Appearing at a politico.com-sponsored forum on immigration in January, McCain
indicated he would be opposed to efforts to "load this up with social
issues and things that are controversial."

"Which is more important, LGBT or border
security?" asked McCain. "I'll tell you what my priorities are. So,
again, if you're going to load it up with social issues, that is the best way
to derail it in my view."

The immigration bill before the committee this week is the Border
Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744). It
is the compromise reached by four Democrats and four Republicans, including
such pro-LGBT senators as Schumer and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. The other
two Democrats are Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado.
The four Republicans in the Gang of Eight include McCain, Graham, Jeff Flake of
Arizona, and Marco Rubio of Florida.

Generally, the bill has things to commend and condemn. It
provides a means by which people in this country without authorization could
earn a green card for permanent immigrant status. But the means for doing so is
long and cumbersome. Most people would not be able to apply for a green card
until they've been here for at least 10 years, and they would not be able to
apply for citizenship until another three years after that.

Immigrants with green cards would be able to immediately
petition to bring their opposite sex spouses and children to the U.S., but
those without green cards would have to wait the 10 years until they get the
green card to do so. And those who obtain citizenship would not be able to
petition to bring their siblings to the U.S.

But despite the fact that the bill is a bipartisan effort,
tensions over immigration continue to erupt in the Senate. On Monday, during
Schumer's opening remarks – that some Republicans were trying to use the
recent Boston Marathon bombing as a reason to delay consideration of the bill
– ranking minority member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) interrupted with a
loud and angry outburst to declare "I never said that, I never said
that," pointing his finger at Schumer.

This week's hearing is the fourth on immigration before the
Judiciary Committee thus far this year, seeking to address issues related to an
estimated 11 million immigrants in the U.S. currently who do not have
government authorization or documentation to be here. The issues include such
things as the separation of family members, the need for agricultural workers, and
a desire to help people brought to this country as children without
documentation, among others.

UCLA's Williams Institute estimated in November 2011 that there
are approximately 28,500 binational same-sex couples in the United States.
About one in four of these couples include a partner from Mexico, 8 percent
from Canada, and 6 percent from the United Kingdom. About one-fourth of the
couples reside in California, 13 percent in New York, 9 percent in Florida, 6
percent each in Illinois and Texas, and 4 percent in Massachusetts.

Two other of the 20 witnesses also mentioned LGBT families
at the April 22 hearing.

Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza,
a Hispanic civil rights group, said the immigration bill is a "significant
milestone" but she expressed some concerns, including its failure to
"keep pace" with the country's "changing society." She said
it sends "mixed messages on family immigration," abandoning the
country's "historic commitment to family unity" by eliminating some
families, including binational same-sex families."

And Laura Lichter, president of the American Immigration
Lawyers Association, said, "For LGBT couples, an individual married in the
United States but who does not have another way to stay in this country, that
individual is at a roadblock and cannot immigrate under current law or even
under the current proposal."

President Barack Obama told a web chat in February that LGBT
couples "should not be treated differently when it comes to any aspect of
American life, and that includes our immigration laws."

Monday's hearing, said Ralls, was "an important
reminder to senators of both parties that this is a bipartisan problem,
impacting both Democratic and Republican families, and fixing it deserves
bipartisan support."